Bellingen and the beauty of nature inspires artists at Nexus Community Gallery Coffs Coast by News Of The Area - Modern Media - January 12, 2023 ‘Flash flood’ from the Resurgence collection by Mark Pryor. NEXUS Community Gallery, in the Old Buttery Factory at Bellingen, opens the year with its first of four Members Exhibitions for the Bellingen Community Arts Council (BCAC) on Sunday 15 January at 3pm, closing on 10 February 2023. This members’ show has a very specific theme of ‘Bellingen Shire – the towns, the people, the beauty’. Artworks have been created to reflect and express the beauty and diversity of the Shire with twelve of the pieces from the exhibition to be selected for the NEXUS 2024 Community Gallery calendar. “The calendar idea was initiated to help promote the Bellingen Shire, the Nexus Gallery, the calendar artists, and regional artists in general,” Linda Ravlich, Nexus Community Gallery spokesperson told News Of The Area. The twelve works chosen by the voting panel for the calendar will be announced at the exhibition opening on Sunday 15 January at 3pm. The Nexus Community Gallery hosts four members’ group shows each year. The remainder of the year the gallery features month-long exhibitions by solo artists or groups of artists. Opening at the Studio Gallery, also on Sunday 15 January at 3pm is Resurgence, an exhibition of works by Mark Pryor. Mid North Coast artist Mark Pryor lives in the Macleay hinterland, west of Kempsey, and has been living, painting and exhibiting on the Mid North Coast for over 40 years. “This will be my third solo exhibition at the Nexus Gallery in Bellingen,” said Mark. “Over those years my art has become a dialogue with my environment. “I am more attracted to a flash of light or colour than to pure representation. “I like to respond to its moods rather than paint them.” Mark works in oils, watercolours and pastels, and gold leaf. “I am essentially a contemporary landscape painter, but with more of a focus on colour and movement,” he said. In this exhibition of oils and watercolours Mark has focussed on a feeling of buoyancy and resurgence of life. “After a few harrowing years, I watch in awe as a battered but resilient landscape glows with life and recovers from catastrophe after catastrophe. “This is an exhibition of environmental recovery, resurgence and hope, and alludes to parallels within society.” By Andrea FERRARI Artist Mark Pryor’s painting, ‘Early morning flooded creek’. ‘After the rains’ by Mark Pryor, who is showing his works at Nexus Gallery in Bellingen.
